The Grand Betraeul: Love in the Ruins

Keeping Secrets… in Cartagena or Tampa

Cartagena is looking mighty good this time of year. Don’t you think? Meanwhile, from Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece to Germany, Belgium, France and the UK, disaffection with austerity continues to grow. Just this week, the old, the young, and the restless, came out in support of Euro-wide protests. And while many Americans think they may have dodged a bullet with the Romney defeat, threat of the “fiscal cliff” (a.k.a. another financial clusterfuck) is staring us in the face. And with his knee-jerk-liberal ingratiating tactics, O-drama may make cannon fodder of us yet. So what should occupy our thoughts today, the Grand Betrayal… or the Grand Petraeus. Or is that another matter alogether? Perhaps – but perhaps not! Is it not surprising how controversy over the Petraeus betrayal splashed suddenly across our flat screens just minutes before discussion of the grand betrayal (Obama bargaining to avoid a fiscal cliff) was getting its legs?

Natalia Petraeus Scott Jill Petraeus Wife

It seems that after Sandy’s rough landing in late October, Petraeus has become our early November surprise… dessert for those still hungry for more distraction and obfuscation. We know that O-drama is hankering to make a grand bargain with the devil himself – the dark souled John Boehner: new taxes on the wealthy, at the cost of reducing spending on diverse elements of the body-politics’ safety net. What a better way to confuse and distract us than by thrusting the good cub scout-faced Petraeus into the limelight fully-exposed, his mistress and the twins on news highlight reels, and his less-than-appealing but enraged wife circling the wagons. Boy, those military guys sure get all the breaks, don’t they?

So, let’s see. If, in addition to his short-chunky wife, Petraeus betrayed (the ubiquitous) “us” by sharing top-secret docs with the well-bred, well-developed, and evidently broad-minded Ms. Broadwell, then perhaps he should be tried for treason just as they are doing to the Private Bradley Manning. But, of course, that could never happen. Plebs are plebs… while kings rule the roost. And, whatever else he is, Petraeus is a king, if not a fallen god. The Uniform(ed) Code of Military Justice; it never fails those with more stars and stripes on their uniforms. Hierarchy reigns supreme. In any event, it certainly appears that Petraeus could have had much more fun, and certainly more bang for his buck, fucking around with the twins – Jill and Natalie. And who knows, Natalie (Natalia) could be Natasha; there may even be some Russian spy connection here. Wow! Wouldn’t that be a wild liaison? What the fuck would we do with the good general/former director of the CIA then? Put him in front of a firing squad? Better yet, put him in charge of O-drama’s Secret Service detail, the same detail that worked Cartagena so well last year: we can even designate that post with the nice simple acronym, P-O-T-U-S-P-I-M-P. Master of securing female liaisons. Gee! I wonder if this can develop more traction than the Sandusky-Paterno affair. We can call it, with broad brushstrokes, the Allen-Petraeus fiasco!! We just love melodrama… As the world turns, anyone?

In all seriousness folks, the French and the Italians are laughing at us: think Sarkozy and Berlusconi. Angela Merkel may be peeved, but she has her own clusterfuck to handle, with Germany acting as bail-bondsman for the aforementioned beleagured Euro-states. And just when you thought things couldn’t get any more fucked-up, just wait and see how the Rupug-licans will come after O-drama now. Why, even John McCain was throwing darts across the bough on the weekly news shows. Now the Libyan Consulate deal is going to receive even further scrutiny in light of the CIA Director’s distraction with Paula and the twins. But, I think before he resigned, the good general should have sought out the wise and well-lubricated counsel of Billy-Boy Jefferson Clinton. Don’t ya think? After all, personal experience is key to guidance offered by tribal elders. But, at least Billy didn’t have a cat-fight going on behind his back. He was more than capable of exposing himself in the Monica Lewinsky affair. Ahhh! Don’t you just love historical memory.

But here, no memory is necessary… we have all of perhaps 30,000 emails that tie the randy Generals rather intimately to Jill and the gang. Talk about a clusterfuck! LOL! Perhaps a broader question might be, what unique influence do two apparently Lebanese sisters have upon the US Military and the CIA? Netanyahoo might shit his pants at this scenario; all the while Israel itself is launching new airstrikes into the Gaza Strip. Well, things are really heatin’ up in the pasture now; soon mother nature will give us another buck, while the various pieces of our paper-mache’d world cuntinue tumblin’ on down: climate change, resource depletion, financial cliffs, mass revolts, imperial wars, homelessness, hopelessness… threats of secession by all fifty states, and perhaps pending insurrection. It’s a wonderful world, folks!

Apparently, sexy women are just as dangerous as are powerful men, and they seem to attract one another. But sexy and powerful women are two times as dangerous, and they invariably create the conditions for a very fatal attraction. Even the Secret Service and the CIA cannot keep the lid on such things. And what better way to keep us entertained or distracted then to spread the melodrama gleefully throughout the news media, day in and day out.Good luck generals! Perhaps Lebanon or the Gaza Strip might be a better bet and a safer place right about now. Or, maybe Cartagena, Columbia! And make sure to bring a Secret Service detail along for proper protection.

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49 Responses to The Grand Betraeul: Love in the Ruins

The real question is wtf was the Patraeus doing in Iraq that made him such a great leader: Bribing tribal chiefs to stand down while we make a hasty retreat. Then they tried the same tactic in Afghanistan. Didn’t work out so well and now we’re stuck in a country where we are despised and non-coms are looking over their shoulders at the Afghan troops they mentored and armed.

Love your tabloid account of our tabloid culture this week Sandy! Ain’t it all just GRAND! I think you’re on to something with the deception theme. I wonder what these lustful rascals have got up their sleeves for us now? Well, besides austerity for the masses of course. But those of us who still have our wits about us knew that was coming all along. Once again, I really have to give a shout out to whoever it was that came up with the term “fiscal cliff.” That’s pure marketing genius right there.

And poor Holly Petraeus. I wonder if she was in on this whole scheme as well? Poor thing really was rightfully cast as the ugly duckling in this whole psycho-drama. Might be at least fitting if she was properly remunerated for the role. And the twin bombshells, what can you say? I’m sure they’re every bit as vapid as they are voluptuous. That’s been my somewhat limited experience anyway.

Anyway. It’s the holiday season again. MORE bread and MORE circuses for EVERYONE! Why not? We’re all broke anyway! Live for today, for tomorrow we die (if we’re lucky), victims of the proverbial “fiscal cliff.”

As the scientist observed, a social hierarchy developed: One despot male and 9 females claimed the two defensible pens with only one ramp provided; 60 others crowded into the other 2 pens with two ramps. Calhoun found that “rodent utopia” rapidly became “hell.”

He described the onset of several pathologies: violence and aggression, with rats in the crowded pen “going berserk, attacking females, juveniles and less-active males.” There was also “sexual deviance.” Rats became hypersexual, pursuing females relentlessly even when not in heat.

Just great. Let’s continue with our annual animal sacrifice of millions of defenseless experiment participants on studies that demonstrate the obvious. Use human subjects since the results are intended to benefit mankind.

Jeers to all of the liars. My friends in the state agencies tell me that more cuts are on the way. Social services will be cut more and this time the activists will be muzzled, brought off or made to disappear. We all know what is going to happen, death on a scale that will truly numb the senses. People will vamish off the sidewalks on a one way trip to the ovens. I for one will fight the lonely battle to save the one person who needs the protection the most.

And to think, with a “liberal Democrat” in the Oval Office and majority in the Senate, albeit not filibuster proof. With “friends” like these, who needs enemies? One can’t help but feel these days have been a long time in the making, roughly thirty two years in my reckoning. Yeah, we were probably always headed down this road one way or another anyway, but the “Reagan Revolution” of the 80’s has certainly lived up to its billing over the long haul. Poor genuine populist liberals and defenders of the common cause, taken in by the twin charlatans BillHillary (and his evil Janus mate HillBillary [by the way, have you noticed that as BillHillary has got skinnier in old age and post by-pass etc., HillBillary has got almost pound for pound fatter? Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do! ) in the 90’s, and now NoBama in the “naughties” and early teens. That’s what happens when you go believin’ in systems, rather than people, and a world-wide “optimal good for all,” rather than a local, individual good for everyone. The fools rush in, the opportunists take advantage, a feeding frenzy ensues, and the sharks consolidate the gains at the top of the food chain. A representative democratic republic aligned with a capitalist economic philosophy/system where money, greed, and power are deified? The results were simply inevitable all along. Amazing that any of us are still surprised now.

take a good look at the general, he ain’t no prize.
lost in the shuffle toward the exit are the real questions. who authorized the air strikes in the first place? the POTUS on his own hook, that’s who; no authorization of force, no declaration of war.
how does one go from supporting “freedom fighters”, to getting the ambassador killed? how does that work? of course these questions will never be asked by the corporate owned press.

as for the fiscal cliff? lost in this discussion is the role of multi-nationals in hollowing out our economy, free trade deals, tariffs, trade, and value-added products. anytime you hear one of these sold out politicos use the phrase “we’re in a global economy”, you know for sure someone’s going to get screwed.

Good point! If you Google the two, pictures of young David and Holly reveal a remarkably compatible pair. He a bookish, mousy looking little dweeb that I’m sure most of his classmates at West Point loved to bully; and she, a rather homely-cute, wallflower type, son of a big time player in the military establishment, set up in the perfect environment to be swept off her feet by a future Four Star, career ladder climbing type. Well played on both accounts I’d say, at least until lately and old David’s super-stardom allowed him to consider that he might do better in old age. Or is the story that simple, or is the story even true at all? Alas, we’ll likely never know, no matter how many illicit accounts come out after the fact. And in the end, will any of us really give a rat’s ass six month’s from now anyway?

That’s what guys think. Yet an old friend of mine, after his divorce, warned me off catting around, with the following observation: Every pussy feels exactly the same.

“A man does not insist on physical beauty in a woman who builds up his morale. After a while he realizes that she is beautiful — he just hadn’t noticed it at first.” ~Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Thanks for offering this alternative perspective. It has more impact coming from a guy. I didn’t want to tee off on the whole stereotyped female physical beauty thing that’s been implied if not blatant here, but you called it well. The connection is what matters, and what allows the rest to happen.

No, not offended, and not by you. The physical attributes (and, fwiw,I frankly didn’t find Ms. Broadwell particularly hot) have been pronounced in the popular media, same as when Bill and Monica were discussed. They seem to be offered up as reasons rather than as symptoms, cause rather than result. I thought some of yours was meant either to provoke or to be ironic, but lots took the bait as literal. This whole notion of sexuality and culture (Insert religion, power, social status–whatever) is a complex and fascinating area…what is biology, what is cultured? But that’s probably a topic for another essay.

“Anyone can see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl she used to be. A great artist can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is . . . and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be . . . more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo see that this lovely young girl is still alive, imprisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart . . . no matter what the merciless hours have done. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn’t matter to you and me—but it does to them. Look at her!”

It’s clear Petraeus wanted out, and this was his way. It’s a perfect smokescreen for his real reasons. It won’t have much impact in his professional and personal life. These things are commonplace and acceptable. Of note was that it took Obama by surprise, and for this reason, Obama and his administration were slow to react to it because they weren’t expecting it. If you couple this with the fact that Obama and his administration were completely out of the loop on the Bhengazi affair, and their response to that underscored that they were in the dark and had to come up with their own half-assed explanation and talking points, you realize that Obama is being hung out to dry by his progenitors, the CIA. There’s only one other president I can think of in recent history who was also hung out to dry by the CIA. That was JFK, and we all know what happened to Jack. The Kill the King ritual. It’s been a while since the last one, and the Zeitgeist is manifesting for another one…..one that will touch off the real beginning of the end for the U.S. as many knew it. Petraeus is aware of this, and does not want to be at the helm when it goes down….perhaps to salvage him for the/a leadership role in the military coup that will follow after Martial Law is instituted to crush the violence from an ensuing fabricated race war.

You had me (plausibly) until the words “race war.” No one except a few far right lunatics view Obama as anything other than what he is: an unapologetic conservative and defender of the American global plutocratic fascist empire. To suggest anything less is simply naive and ignorant. Race has little or nothing to do with anything anymore. It’s all about social-economic class now. In truth, probably always was, we were just all too stupid to know it at the time. Obama won’t be assassinated for the same reasons he was re-elected: he’s the best friend (read: most articulate and marketable representative) BIG CAPITAL has ever had.

race has nothing to do with it among those who have it made, but it is still used by the aforementioned top dogs to foment division among the lower classes. but yes, the “unapologetic conservative and defender of the American global plutocratic fascist empire” is certainly the “most articulate and marketable representative” of the ruling class we have seen in awhile.
what troubles me is the disconnect between today’s america, and yesteryear’s america in peoples minds. the system of exploitation which gave us such dainty little customs as the triangle trade is still in full force. slavery was about profits pure and simple, hell, the wealthy would enslave their mothers if it made them money, the fact that the slaves were black africans? all the better, the “other” which martin buber wrote about.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou
so, this country hasn’t changed a bit, only cosmetically.

post-modern thought, is there such a creature? and how would one go about critiquing it? but yes, the FEMA shock troops are scary, indoctrinated from their youth to serve the State, our new god; jesus h. christ, perhaps this is one right wing talking point with some validity. excuse me, i just threw up a little in my mouth………………….

From a comment today on Kunstler’s site :
BEGIN QUOTE
HomelandSecurity graduates first Corps of HomelandYouth

October 7, 2012. Vicksburg. The federal government calls them FEMA Corps. But they conjure up memories of the Hitler Youth of 1930’s Germany. Regardless of their name, the Dept of Homeland Security has just graduated its first class of 231 Homeland Youth. Kids, aged 18-24 and recruited from the President’s AmeriCorp volunteers, they represent the first wave of DHS’s youth corps, designed specifically to create a full time, paid, standing army of FEMA Youth across the country.
END QUOTE

Just the name ‘Homeland Security’ has always sent shivers up my spine. Fascism really was shockingly easy to implement here in the “Land of the Free,” was’t it? A single false flag incident in 9-11, and the rest went down easy after that. A perpetual “War on (Conveniently) Undefinable Terror” followed shortly thereafter, and now we’re all just good little Nazi’s serving the common good again. Amerika, ask not for whom the bell tolls…

what gets me is when the liberal intelligentsia laments the ravages of the MIC, but then talks all about “the brave men and women protecting our freedom”, what freedom is that? the freedom to buy cheap Chinese crap at Wal-Mart? or the freedom to be unemployed? or to have our e-mails perused by the DHS?
this line of reasoning is akin to the “we’re in a global economy” meme. listening to an erudite discussion on NPR the other day where the polished professorial type was talking about how we need to import tech savvy talent, seems we Americans just aren’t getting the job done, well guess what? i see plenty of homeboys hanging on the corner everyday, why aren’t they being trained? too hard? or is it that they don’t see the payoff for at least trying to be educated? establishment types love to talk about the level playing field, about working hard, but if our capitalist system is not motivating people to try to succeed? then i say it has failed. this goes for both wings of the corporate party, they are selling snake oil plain and simple.
but back to the erudite discussion on NPR, i did avoid punching the dashboard, that truck cost me money, you go punching stuff you can break your hand, and i have to work. don’t think punching the dashboard is covered by AFLAC.

btw, I think we’re going to go from the grand election anti-climax and the generals’ pseudo-scandal right to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Bowl games, and holiday shopping, with nary a worry about fiscal cliffs, ME meltdowns, or FEMA youth. BAU.